


Excerpts from the Lost Journal of Sir James Clark Ross

by what_alchemy



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canadian Shack, M/M, POV Outsider, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: Six years after his first rescue mission failed, Sir James Clark Ross sets out into the Arctic one last time.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 32
Kudos: 176
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	Excerpts from the Lost Journal of Sir James Clark Ross

_Recently unearthed from the false bottom of a chest belonging to Sir James Clark Ross, this journal provides a fascinating first-hand account of a retired Navy man in the mid 19th century—and puts to bed a mystery that has captured imaginations for more than 150 years._

28 August 1855

I can scarcely believe I am about to write these words: I have located dear Francis and Commander Fitzjames, alive and well near Baker Lake. 

To relate the tale in full, I find I must place my discovery in its particular context. I do not know who will read this, or, indeed, if I should tear these pages from my journal and burn them entire, but I find I must get the words out. I must organize my thoughts in order to understand the enormity of what has occurred, and consider the path forward with my newfound knowledge. 

How I came to find my friends begins thus:

Upon my return from my first rescue mission some five years ago, I was melancholy in the face of my failure. Francis, Fitzjames, Blanky, Sir John and all the rest—dead in that frozen wasteland, far from all the comforts of home and Christendom, having endured great suffering before the end came. I was a man as haunted by my guilt at having left them to their fate—surely another polar veteran would have served them well—as I was by my relief that I had not been among their number, that I had been safe and warm in the bosom of my loving wife, my Christmas puddings, my full belly and the embrace of a country eager to fête me at every turn. What right had I to the comforts of this life when my friends, my brothers, lay unburied amid the ice and the darkness? But oh, how I cherished those comforts.

After my return, two more sea rescues were mounted and returned empty-handed; the commencement of over-land searches was imminent. More than once I had occasion to converse with some officers from those missions at banquets with the Admiralty—I shall not commit to paper their names, for they do not deserve the respect of history’s long memory, should this entry in my journal survive the writing of it.

These officers—green and crass, having scarcely seen snow before winging off into the Arctic on the hope of glory and adulation—snickered and sneered through their descriptions of the Netsilik they encountered. Stupid and dangerous and stinking of rotten seal, these boys declared with a twist in their mouths and their noses in the air. Lies, the lot of it—and I know better than most.

Despite the prevailing thought among my countrymen otherwise, the Netsilik are not a savage people. Though I hope missionaries can someday bring them into the light of our Lord, I have found the Netsilik to be exceedingly hospitable in their dealings with us. They are eager to share in the bounty of their hunts, they exchange goods and information freely, and they do not hesitate to offer shelter should we require it. No, they are not a savage people—truly, the definition of “savage” is flawed if this is what we call them. Heathens, perhaps—but that is hardly their fault, and is it not the duty of a Christian to embrace the heathen and show him the way to salvation?

When I pressed these young men, back from the Arctic and stuffed so full of themselves for having peeped through a telescope over the tundra once or twice, for details on their dealings with the Netsilik, they merely shrugged and laughed like little children. 

“They didn’t understand a word our interpreter said,” I heard from various men. “Absolute gibberish, that savage tongue—you must have noticed. I suspect any Englishman purporting to speak it is quite having us on.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked, every time.

“Why, they always said they’d seen old Crozier.” The men would smirk and posture, leaning in close as if to impart a great and terrible joke. “Hundreds of miles away from where the ships would have been, and the Eskis are insisting Crozier and some other crew member are banging about having a grand old time. Preposterous, really. I don’t know why anyone asks them anything at all. Dull as bricks, every last one of them.”

And so on.

Last year, the Admiralty declared the expedition lost and every man on it dead. Meanwhile, I was kept up at night by the persistent thought that I, personally, had missed something. In the wee hours when my Ann was asleep, I would look out the window into the swallowing darkness and imagine my friend, trapped in the polar night. Proud and defiant though he was, I could see the flash of fear and desperation in his eyes. “James,” I could hear him say. “Please.”

My poor Ann. Of course I had to try again. 

JCR

29 August 1855

I must admit I misled the Admiralty. I set sail not for King William Land, but into Hudson Bay and toward Chesterfield Inlet. From there we sailed as close as we could to Baker Lake. When we could go no farther by sea, I set down our anchor and took off on foot, accompanied only by Campbell Thacker, Ice Master and interpreter of the Netsilik tongue. A week’s walk and we found ourselves among a settlement of modest size, entirely Native. 

We took their offers of warm fires and fresh fish and a place to sleep with our thanks. Everyone asked said yes, they had seen Aglooka and another white man. Regularly, even. The declaration was nonchalant and always accompanied by a vague gesture toward a deeper west. 

When I pulled out the map to receive clearer directions, the Netsilik were inevitably fascinated, tracing the lines of the land and the rivers with calloused fingertips, repeating words that must have been the Native names for various landmarks. But none could tell me precisely where Francis and his companion may be. 

“They come by once, twice a month to trade,” Thacker translated. “If we but wait, they will simply come to us.”

I did not wish to wait. Nor did Thacker. Rested and determined, we set off dead west to find my friend. 

The land here is not as unforgiving as the lands further north. Even now, when the ice up north would be gathering so cruelly already, it is more temperate—I do not need five layers, nor covering for my ears. I can leave my great coat open. There are birds and other wildlife yet, and the sun takes longer to set. There is even tell of a tree or two. I can see why the Netsilik have settled here. I can see why Francis would, too.

After a journey of but two days, Thacker and I found ourselves before a wood cabin. It was small, but four modest walls and a pointed roof, and it listed to one side as if built by unpracticed hands—an edifice clearly not of Native construction. Some fifty paces away was an equally askew latrine.

I stopped dead in front of the little house, my heart a wild rabbit. I heaved for breath and Thacker grasped my shoulder.

“Take heart, Captain,” he said. 

“I don’t know why I should be nervous, Mr. Thacker,” I said. “The finest of friends, thought lost all these long years, is just beyond that door.”

“Aye,” Thacker said, “and as long as you stand outside of it, nothing can tell you otherwise.”

My heart dropped and the corners of my mouth with it, but I girded my loins and nodded. Thacker was not one to allow a man his comforting falsehoods, even his captain.

“With your shield or on it, Captain,” he said, and thumped the great mitt of his hand on my back. I breathed deeply of the fresh Arctic air—I knew I would miss it, someday not long from now—and took my first steps toward the shabby little cabin.

The barking of dogs staid my progress, and suddenly the door swung open and two great beasts that looked like wolves made miniature bounded out and nearly tackled us both. A man who cut an impressive figure emerged from the cabin.

“Jupiter, Mercury!” he shouted. “Heel!”

The dogs were not attacking but instead licking, their tails whipping frantically about like branches in a gale. I buried my hands in the fur behind the ears of one and then the other in turn, happy as ever to meet new friends.

I looked up from my greeters and my breath left me when I saw that it was James Fitzjames, standing frozen in the doorway.

“My God, man!” I cried. “God is good!”

I rushed to his side and flung myself into his embrace without thought to decorum. He locked his arms around me and murmured my name. His hair was long now, down the middle of his back, and I buried my face in its luxuriant locks. In my enthusiasm, I squeezed him until an undignified squeak escaped his lips. I released him in haste and grasped him by the shoulders. He stared at me dumbly, lips parted, no doubt in shock.

“Fitzjames,” I said. “My God, we thought you lost. Truly, I have never beheld a finer sight.”

And then, from inside the cabin, a familiar brogue.

“James?” 

We both turned toward Francis as he stepped out of the cabin. His jaw dropped and that eyebrow of his winged upward like a startled bird. I had only a moment to take in his two, perhaps three-stone weight loss, the way his hair had turned fully silver. Despite it all, he looked well. Unburdened. His eyes were not bleary with drink, nor his cheeks rosy with anything but the chill of the air.

“James, what— Oh, James!”

And then I was folded into Francis’s arms, and even lifted off the ground. I found myself laughing even as the dogs yipped and howled and jumped on us. I did not pause to wonder where Fitzjames went during all of this, so consuming was my ecstasy at reunion. 

When finally Francis set me down, I pulled away from him to gaze into that dearly missed face of his. Oh, he was just the same, and entirely different. It was then that I noticed he was missing a hand, but I did not make mention of it. 

“Francis,” I said. “Oh Francis, you do not know the lengths to which we have gone to find you. I am so glad. So glad.”

“And you are a sight to behold, my friend.” Francis squeezed my shoulder. His eyes scanned behind me before he clapped my back and invited me, and Thacker, inside.

The cabin was warm inside with a fire going, and it was larger than could have been anticipated from outward appearances.

“You’ll stay awhile, of course,” Francis said, and I agreed heartily. Francis and Fitzjames would need time to pack their things and put their affairs in order before we made our way back to the ship, back to England and all the comforts of home. 

While Fitzjames was out on the hunt with the dogs, Francis and I passed the afternoon and early evening exchanging tales of all that had occurred in each other’s absence. At his prompting and despite the burning need in me to hear of his own exploits out here in the wilds of Nunavut, I told Francis of the rescue missions, of Lady Jane and Miss Cracroft’s stubborn hope, matched only by the Admiralty’s insistence upon sweeping the whole business under the rug. As the shadows grew longer, Francis’s eyes grew troubled and he turned them from me to the fire. 

Sir John was dead, as was everyone else from the expedition. I had suspected as much, but I was caught off guard by the pain the sure knowledge of it caused. It was a fantastical tale with a bear and spoilt food and more than one mutiny, but after everything, he and Fitzjames had taken shelter with the Netsilik and were healed there of the impromptu amputation and the scurvy respectively. When the thaw came, they set out southeast in search of the Company. Why they never went farther than Baker Lake, and indeed built a house there, Francis did not volunteer.

Before the last rays of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, Fitzjames returned with a brace of Arctic hares, already skinned and gutted. The dogs were left outside in a lean-to against the southern wall of the house.

“Greedy beggars,” Francis said. “They’d hound you for your dinner and then steal it when your back was turned.”

“We’ll let them back in when it’s done,” Fitzjames said. “I suppose we do spoil them.”

For his part, Fitzjames looked as well as Francis did—still lean and strong, and while his hair was perhaps shocking, it suited him as finely as the tailored coats of the British Navy once had. He had lost a few teeth to the scurvy, but so too had I lost a pair in the back to simple tooth ache. 

I found him changed more in manner than in body. I had thought to spend the evening regaled by his version of all that had passed—indeed, I had been looking forward to the thrilling narratives he would surely share. Instead he brooded into the fire and kept his own counsel, speaking briefly when he spoke at all. His smiles were restrained and he seemed reluctant to look at me, his attentions trained on Francis if he turned them on a man at all.

Exhaustion and excitement converged to leave me dead on my feet. Francis and Fitzjames arranged Thacker and me each a bed of furs nearer the smoldering embers of the fire, in the opposite corner from their own. Before sleep took me, I saw Fitzjames dither by their bed, and they exchanged furious whispers my ears were not sharp enough to hear. After some time spent thus, Fitzjames yanked some furs away and absconded into a different corner, rolling himself away from the lot of us. Even the dogs whined until one set himself down by Francis and the other by Fitzjames. I do not know why they quarreled, but I know Francis must have felt keenly the loss of Fitzjames’s warmth; given the cold, I would have, as well.

JCR

21 September 1855

The days passed in ease—Fitzjames brought us hunting, and showed us how he tanned hides and told us of sewing up garments from all manner of materials, though he was still subdued, not the man I had once known and cared for almost as dearly as I had Francis. Francis shared his techniques for salting and drying caribou and elk, and even spoke of using dogs—many more than he had now, pulling a sledge—as a mode of transport. We did not speak of England, even when I tried to maneuver the conversation in that direction. They never packed up their things, nor spoke of making alternate arrangements for the cabin, nor considered all the items they could surely sell to the Netsilik at Baker Lake. And every night, whilst Thacker and I lay side by side to preserve our warmth, Francis and Fitzjames slept in separate corners, tension suffusing the cabin.

We had been with them a week and Thacker was growing restless when I resolved to force Francis to speak plain. Francis and Fitzjames had left the dogs and the cabin some time before I ventured out to look for them, but I stopped dead when I heard their voices carrying from behind the latrine. They were arguing again—how they had survived with each other almost ten years, I could not fathom. I flattened myself against the wall of the cabin and tilted only my head out to see if I could spy them.

They were standing very close, whispering in a way that sounded more like shouting, though I could not make out the words. Fitzjames was flinging his hands out and ranting as he crowded Francis against the side of the latrine, and Francis was growing red in the face, the way he used to when he perceived every comment as an insult, his hand a convulsive fist at his side. I almost darted out to hold Fitzjames back, but what happened next froze me as surely as a ship in ice.

Francis seized Fitzjames’s face, one good hand running up his jaw to bury itself in all that hair, and he pulled Fitzjames down in a punishing kiss. I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth, unable to look away as Fitzjames melted into Francis and gave way to his devouring mouth. Their bodies collided and Fitzjames clutched at Francis so tightly I could not see daylight between them.

My stomach churned and I tried to will my eyes from the sight of this, my dearest friend pitching himself headlong into the darkest sin, but I could no more look away than I could rise into the clouds and wing myself back to England without a sail. 

After long moments of this unspeakable exchange, they pulled away from each other, panting. Fitzjames rested his forehead on Francis’s and cradled his face so tenderly. They were speaking softly now, punctuating their words with kisses, and finally, finally, I tore myself away. I crept along the walls of the cabin, careful not to make a sound, and left them to it. 

It was not base lust I saw between them. I felt ill at the thought that it was, but the sight of their affection seared my mind more deeply than the sight of their animal urges. No, it was not lust I had stumbled so blindly into like a newborn foal—it was love. They were living as man and wife out here in the cold, though I could not rightly say which one was wife and which one was man. I did not wish to know, but I could also not deny the truth of it, plain on Fitzjames’s miserable moue all these long days, and on Francis’s too, now that I knew how to interpret his searching gaze, his quirking brow, his soft smiles in the periphery of my vision.

God save me or God strike me down, I could not bring myself to drag them away from their togetherness. I have heard tell that the marriage bed is sinless.

I entered the cabin and found Thacker sharing dried elk with Jupiter. 

“Captains Crozier and Fitzjames will not be accompanying us back to England,” I told him, and he took it with as much aplomb as he took anything. 

“I thought not, sir,” he said.

“Good God, Thacker,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wanted time with your friends, Captain,” he said serenely, hand buried in Jupiter’s pelt. “You had to make it count.”

“We shall prepare tonight and make our goodbyes in the morning,” I said, and he agreed readily. 

If Francis was surprised at the announcement of our imminent departure, he did not show it, but I detected instead a tendril of relief and gratitude. For his part, Fitzjames released the tension he had been cultivating for our entire sojourn, and finally smiled as the brother in arms he had once been to me.

They slept separately on our final night with them, and in the morning, they stood one behind the other, far too close, waving from the doorway as we diminished into the distance.

I will never reveal to the Admiralty what we found, and nor will Thacker, as he is the very soul of discretion. I will tell them, and Lady Jane and Miss Cracroft, and all of England besides, that I received indisputable confirmation of the long-ago deaths of Sir John Franklin, Francis Crozier, James Fitzjames and the rest of the expedition entire. 

I will leave those men to their peace.

JCR

**End**

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the titillating bit of trivia that there were sightings of Crozier and an unnamed crew member around Baker Lake as late as 1858. Let's all pretend Francis and James happily ever aftered it for many years thereafter.
> 
> For the "shelter" square on my 2019 Terror bingo card.


End file.
